The National School Meals Program (PNAE) - the largest and oldest public policy in the area of food and nutrition in Brazil, constituting a strategy for Food and Nutrition Security (SAN) - aims to promote and ensure access to adequate food for students in basic education. The Federal Law 11947/2009, links PNAE to family farming, determining that the minimum percentage of 30% of the financial resources transferred by the Union is for the purchase of food from this productive category. This paper analyzed the process of acquisition and supply of food from family farming to meet the school meals of the Federal Institutions of Higher Education (IFES) of the Metropolitan Region of Belém (RMB) as a tool for local development and for Food and Nutritional Security, including the period of the Covid-19 pandemic. It is presented as a qualitative research of theoretical-empirical nature combining exploratory and descriptive elements, having in its procedures the bibliographic and documentary research and on-site interviews with the actors involved in the procurement process in the IFES of the RMB and with family farmers participating and not participating in the PNAE. It was found that the organization of PNAE in the IFES of the RMB meets the Law No. 11947/2009, regarding the purchase of foodstuffs from family farming, and that it has shown important advances, although limiting factors are still present, such as production planning and its inherent issues (insufficient quantity produced, little variety of products offered), compliance with the agenda of requests and sanitary legislation, low participation in public calls, difficulties in understanding the legislation and procedural barriers within the institutions. It was verified that in the pandemic period normative rules were created for the execution of PNAE and the IFES of RMB developed strategies such as the maintenance of income support, support for food distribution and also a campaign to collect food baskets, opting for not distributing family farming products. It can be inferred that the PNAE has the capacity for greater use, both by the Public Administration and by family farmers, so it requires good coordination between those who buy and those who sell, considering all those involved in the process, since the program has its own complexity, being necessary to improve the program to the specificities of the IFES in order to improve the process of purchases from family farming, contributing to local development and to Food and Nutrition Security.
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